Consumer Law

The Politics of ?Tort Reform? Gobbledygook

By Joe Consumer

Your challenge: try to make sense of the following.  But we will have no winners, at least not today.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee continues its mark up of H.R. 5 on Wednesday, a bill that would massively preempt state medical malpractice laws as bill supporters try to tell states that they do not know best - Congress does.  This will come a couple hours after those same bill supporters denounce the new health care law as unconstitutional after arguing that Congress does not know best - states do.

Some of these same members of Congress just formed a ?Civil Justice Caucus,? the goal of which is not to support civil justice but to obliterate it.

Meanwhile, President Obama has decided to use scarce budget dollars to further harm the sick and injured who may already be suffering directly because of his budget.  Specifically, in a budget that fails to provide enough money for housing and heating assistance for the poor, the budget proposed by President Obama includes $250 million for unneeded state programs that will harm patients injured by medical malpractice, jeopardize patient safety and generate more profit for the corporations that control the health care industry.  Some of these measures would eliminate the right to trial by jury in medical malpractice cases and are likely unconstitutional.

And New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ? or at least a ?Medicaid Redesign Team? that he appointed - appears interested in recommending Draconian restrictions on the rights of patients, specifically targeting brain-damaged babies.  These proposals have nothing whatsoever to do with saving Medicaid money, but instead will generate profit for the corporations that control the health care industry.

Are you as lost as we are?

Full post as published by ThePopTort on February 15, 2011 (boomark / email).